In over forty scores Bernard Herrmann enriched the work of such directors as Orson Welles (Citizen Kane), Alfred Hitchcock (North By Northwest, Vertigo, Psycho, Marnie etc.), Francois Truffaut (Fahrenheit 451), and Martin Scorsese (Taxi Driver). From his first film (Citizen Kane) to his last (Taxi Driver), Herrmann was a master at evoking psychological nuance and dramatic tension through music, often using unheard-of instrumental combinations to suit the dramatic needs of a film.
Read more His scores are among the most distinguished ever written, ranging from the fantastic (Fahrenheit 451, The Day the Earth Stood Still) to the romantic (Obsession, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir) to the terrifying (Psycho).
Film was not the only medium in which Herrmann made a powerful mark. His radio broadcasts included Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre on the Air and its most notorious presentation, The War of the Worlds. His concert music was commissioned and performed by the New York Philharmonic. As chief conductor of the CBS Symphony, Herrmann gave important first performances of music by such composers as
Ralph Vaughan Williams (27) and
Charles Ives (25), whose work he particularly championed.
Almost as celebrated as these achievements are the enduring legends of Herrmann's combativeness and volatility. As complex as any character in the films he scores, Herrmann remains a creative genius, an indefatigable musicologist, an explosive bully, a generous and compassionate man who desperately sought friendship and love.
"As a composer I might class myself as a Neo-Romantic, inasmuch as I have always regarded music as a highly personal and emotional form of expression. I like to write music which takes its inspiration from poetry, art and nature. I do not care for purely decorative music. Although I am in sympathy with modern idioms, I abhor music which attempts nothing more than the illustration of a stylistic fad. And in using modern techniques, I have tried at all times to subjugate them to a larger idea or a grander human feeling."
- Bernard Herrmann in Bernard Herrmann: Hollywood’s Music-Dramatist by Edward Johnson
